Kima'la, the spirit tree - stylized diorama

Free time project from a while ago. I really wanted to create a diffuse-only texture without any lights on it in the scene, from a concept of my own. I made a sketch on my iPad as a starting point, then going to a rough blockout in Maya. I then went to zBrush, and using the bakes from the highpoly as a starting point even though I would not be using normals for example. I used stuff like curvature, AO and some filters to get a decent looking starting point, then did handpainting from there. It was mostly about trying out a new workflow, have fun and create something small that has a beginning and an end and could be completed within a relatively short amount of time.

Kima'la, the spirit tree - stylized diorama

Sketch I made showing the rough idea as a starting point.

Rough mock-up in Maya, where I played around with the design some more and tried to make it a bit more interesting.